We have been fortunate to attract the support of many smart and committed volunteers over the years. It really helped LearnThatWord along, and made it the complex and valuable tool it is today.

Every once in a while, we are blessed with someone who goes above and beyond and who contributes in a special and impactful way. This year, we want to honor Ms. Mary Anne Clark, Ph.D., as our 2015 volunteer of the year. She not only recorded over a thousand words, but even edited them as well! She also is on the lookout for good additions to our database, and has added quite a few interesting words.

Ms. Clark is Professor of Biology at Texas Wesleyan University. We featured her Spelling Bee triumphs in a previous blog post here.Thank you for your valuable contributions! When I asked Ms. Clark about the origin of her special connection to words, she sent me the following story:

There's a Word for That.

I didn't learn to read until late in first grade. My mother had read to me a lot, but the fact that I could not really read myself was immediately spotted by my teacher, Mamie Murphy, when I failed to "color three balloons purple." She took me in hand and by the end of the year I could read. It became not just a useful tool for coloring the right balloon, but a lifelong pleasure. In college, I took a really useful course about the Greek and Latin roots of English words. One of our assignments was to find five new words a week and write a little analysis of them. This was an excuse to read whatever I liked and call it homework. Aldous Huxley proved to be a goldmine of strange vocabulary; my most productive phrase from one of his books was " The stertorous borborygmus of the dyspeptic Carlyle" from Point Counter Point.

By the time I had finished the course I was a hopeless word junkie.

Year before last I volunteered to join the Texas Wesleyan team in a Corporate Spelling Bee sponsored by the Tarrant Literacy Coalition. To my absolute astonishment, we won. The head speller for the team was the amazing Bruce McDonald, who absolutely blew me away by pulling the correct spelling for "emmeleia," a word none of us had ever heard, out of the ether. Bruce teaches religion and humanities and is an accomplished musician, so he has a large word fund. My other teammate, Marilyn Pugh, teaches psychology, and is also an outstanding speller. I teach biology, which is another word swamp.

When we went back last year to defend our title, which turned the spelling bee from a good romp to a terrifying ordeal, the TLC provided us with a number of training tools, which included the Learn That Word web site. While browsing through the LearnThat word lists, I noticed some mismatches between spoken and written word entries. After some petulant grumbling, I sent about a dozen sound files to the support site. The next thing I knew, I was a volunteer. What a great job for a word junkie! I have enjoyed combing through the word lists, and picking up new words as I look for sound mismatches.

A few weeks ago, shortly after my husband and I had seen a particularly vapid movie, I came across the perfect word for it in one of the LearnThat word lists: Sardoodledom. Who knew there was a word for that?

One of our audio pronouncing volunteers, Professor Mary Ann Clark, won the 2015 spelling bee along with her colleagues from Texas Wesleyan University!The event benefitted the Tarrant County Literacy Coalition. The winning word was "septuagenarian," and the word that terminated the spelling bee was "xenodocheionology."

Prof. Clark after the 2015 spelling bee victory with her colleagues from Texas Wesleyan University. She is standing third from the left.

Announcing her victory, Ms. Clark writes: "You’ll be happy to know that we won our Spelling Bee last night! I think that the LearnThat site helped a lot. ☺"Yes, we are indeed happy and proud! Congratulations, TXWES.edu Team!

This morning, the drawing of our annual winners from a set of 24,337 lucky numbers was completed via randompicker.com. All of the winners have been notified by email.Lucky numbers are earned by premium members for their study effort.

The first prize, a trip for four to Playa Viva, went to username JessBohannon. Four more members received 10-year memberships to LearnThatWord: mohsri, [email protected], SpellStarGirl, and gayle.arch.

I just had this graphic appear on my Facebook stream, posted by Gabi Butler. Not sure if it originated there, but it made me laugh, and it had the best collection of puns added in the comments!I thought all you word lovers congregating here at LearnThatWord would enjoy it

The following additional puns originate from the comments for this post... the originators are unknown.*Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and, with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him (Oh, man, this is so bad, it's good) a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.*William had to leave the army because they kept saying: "Fire at will!"* A wise man said "A man that runs in front of a car gets tired, but a man that runs behind the car gets exhausted."*Just got fired from the orange juice factory, apparently I couldn't concentrate, so I got canned.*The butcher backed up into his meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.*If you're Canadian when you enter the bathroom and you're American when you exit, what are you while you're in the bathroom? European.*Need an ark? I Noah guy.*I read this while I was on a boat! It didn't sink in .*A midget fortune teller escapes from jail. The newspaper headline reads..."Small medium at large!"*Never ever trust atoms, they make up everything. *

Those who jump off a bridge in Paris are in Seine.

*What did the buffalo say to his little boy when he was leaving for work?

"Bison."*I would love to open a bakery, if I could raise the dough.*"Tic Tacs" for sale! Mint condition.*How many tickles does it take to make an octopus giggle?...ten tickles!*Did you hear about the Italian chef who died? He just pasta way.*My television is paranoid , it always feels like it's being watched all the time.*1000 packets of laxatives stolen from a chemist. Police say the criminals are on the run.*Why couldn't the skeleton eat a whole pizza? He didn't have the stomach for it.*I would tell you another Chemistry joke, but all the good ones argon!*What do you call an Irish man that bounces off of walls.......Rick O Shay!*A termite walks into a bar and asks " Is the bar tender here?*I went to a garage sale the other day. I was disappointed that the garage wasn't for sale.*Did you know that Neil Armstrong was constantly sent out of class as a child for spacing out on his assignments?*I used to be dyslexic but I'm KO now.*I would give my right hand to be ambidextrous.*How about the optician who fell into the lens grinding machine and made a spectacle of himself?*Then there was the alcoholic optician... After two glasses he created a spectacle.*I wonder if retired bowlers have time to spare?*I went to a seafood disco rave last night... I pulled a mussel.*A speeding hearse makes a sharp turn, the casket flies out and crashes through a drug store window and stops inches away from the pharmacist. The casket lid opens, the corpse sits up and asks, "Hey, how do I stop this coffin?"*I drove my expensive car into a tree and found out how the Mercedes bends.*I have a friend named Philip who cut off his lip, now I just call him Phil.*Whoever stole my Microsoft DVD is in big trouble, you have my Word!*I know a guy who used to be addicted to soap. But don't worry, he's clean now.*What do you call a fake noodle? "An impasta"*He threw sodium chloride at me! That's a salt!*I once tried to make a belt out of wristwatches. I stopped because it was a waist of time.*I have two sisters - one works for the Gas Board. Do you wanna meter? The other works in a glue factory and she's sticking to it.*I don't know why but I got arrested at the airport. All that happened was; I saw my buddy Jack and waved to him and said, "Hi Jack!"*I walked into my local library and saw a large sign that said "No reading aloud!"*Did you hear about the cow who tried to jump over the barbed wire fence? It was an udder catastrophe.*Do you know the capital of Alaska? Juneau. If I knew I wouldn't be asking.*Why are Helium, Barium, and Curium the "medical" elements? Because if you can't Helium or Curium, you Barium.*At first, I couldn't remember how to throw a boomerang. But eventually, it came back to me.*I think punsters don't get the credit they deserve. Like the forgotten guy who invented knock-knock jokes -- he should have gotten the no-bell prize.*What do you call two surgeons waiting patiently: A paradox.*Parallel lines have so much in common, it's too bad they'll never meet.*My pet rock is upset with me... says I take it for granite.*I farted in a lift full of people the other day, which was wrong on so many levels.*I used to work for a company that made submarines but they went under.*I was thinking about going into the hotel business, but I just had too many reservations.*I changed my iPhone's name to Titanic. It's syncing now.*Heard about the guy who rear-ended a truck load of pumpkins? He got squashed.*A big hole was discovered at the top of Main Street, police are looking into it*I wanted to be a mail carrier, but I couldn't go that route.*Santa never has to go to the hospital because he has private elf care!*I know a guy who was fired because a piece of the ceiling fell on him. They said he was fired because he was plastered.*A man sent ten different puns to each of his friends via Facebook in hopes that one of them would make his friends laugh. Unfortunately no pun in ten did.*Bondage is KNOT for everyone.*I didn't like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.*A juggler was doing a show for a crowd. Among his spectators, he spies a group of men: a Brit, a Frenchman, a Spaniard, and a German. They were in the far back of the crowd, so the juggler steps up on a stand and asks them, "Can you see me now?" The four men answer one by one, "Yes." "Oui." "Si." "Ja."*Yesterday I accidentally swallowed some food coloring. The doctor says I'm OK, but I feel like I've dyed a little inside.*A friend of mine was given an acoustic guitar for free; of course, strings were attached.*Why did the Scotsman quit the army? He didn't want to get kilt!*Why couldn't the fungus get into the bus? There wasn't mushroom.*I would have been a farmer but it wasn't my field.*Photographers today aren't as negative as they used to be.*I once had a job making clown shoes, which was no small feat.*I used to do quality control in a mattress factory, on and off.*Jokes about steaks are: A rare medium well done.*A used to have a fear of hurdles, then I got over it.*I'm so bright my mommy calls me son.*"I stayed up all night to see where the sun went. THEN it dawned on me"*My sister was strangely sitting at the breakfast table not saying a word or moving. I finally nudged her and asked her what was up. She said the orange juice bottle said concentrate.*As I reached out to catch the football, I wondered why do goal posts only have one pole. Then it hit me!*A guy walked up to me and said he was going to attack me with the neck of a guitar. I said: "What? Is that a fret?"*Tony the Tiger, Cap'n Crunch, Toucan Sam and Snap, Crackle and Pop were found dead... Police say they think it was the work of a cereal killer.*If your nose is stuffy and you think its funny, it snot.*The pun is mightier than the sword!*I'm going to steal these. Does that make me a pundit?*What happens to a frog when he parks illegally. He gets toad.*Once, I walked into my sister's room and tripped on a bra... It was a boobie-trap!*A woman has twins, and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named 'Amal.' The other goes to a family in Spain, they name him Juan'. Years later; Juan sends a picture of himself to his mum. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wished she also had a picture of Amal. Her husband responds, "But they are twins. If you've seen Juan, you've seen Amal.*Waiter! One crocodile sandwich please, and make it snappy.*My vacuum cleaner sucks!*I heard oxygen was dating magnesium and I was like OMg!*Jokes about 9/11 are just plane wrong*Pun spelled backward is "nup," and a nup is a nup!*This barrel kept getting in my way but I'm over it.*I slammed my hand in the rent-a-car door. It Hertz*I started exercising today...Butt weight, it's up lifting.*We're trying to console his wife, cheese still not over it.*I hear his widow has been hitting the sauce pretty hard.*I recently worked with a drilling crew to drill boreholes, install instruments then seal the holes again with cement. We called the group the "Earthodontists".*My girlfriend finally came out of her shell, then I lobster. Later I flounder.*You know who's a terrible boxer? Peter Pan. Why? Because his punches Neverland!*I knew a glass blower who inhaled. He had a pane in his chest.*"I have good news and bad news," the defense lawyer says to his client."What's the bad news?"The lawyer says, "Your blood matches the DNA found at the murder scene.""Dammit!" cries the client. "What's the good news?""Well," the lawyer says, "Your cholesterol is down to 140."*A man was diagnosed with a serious illness. He had two choices: 1) Sit & waste his life away 2) Do an operation. He chose the second choice & had an operation done. Soon, he was on the path of healing. "What made you choose the right choice?" asked the doctor. "Did I have a left?"*Guy goes into a bar with a giraffe, orders a beer for him and for the giraffe all night. At closing the giraffe falls over and the guy gets up to leave. bartender says, 'Oy! You can't leave that lyin' there!" Guy says, 'That's not a lion, that's a giraffe."*A horse walks into a bar and bartender asks "Why such a long face?"*A set of jumper cables walked to a bar, the bartender said I'll serve you but better not start anything.*What does a vulture take onto an airplane? A: Its carrion baggage.*What should I do if my nose goes on strike? Pick it.*I was the second man on the moon. Neil before me.*Finding "bigfoot" is no small feat.*I used to be a commercial fisherman but I quit because life had no porpoise.*Have you seen the movie "Constipation"? Oh, that's right... It hasn't come out yet.*A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. "But why?" they asked, as they moved off. "Because," he said, "I can't stand chess nuts boasting in anopen foyer."*Went to the rehab center and looked plainly at the sign stating keep off the grass.*Cub reporter is given the job of creating a brief headline for a story: A man escaped from a mental hospital, committed sexual assault on a woman, and then ran away. After thinking and thinking, and thinking some more, he was totally frustrated and at a loss, the light bulb FINALLY came on!!! Perfect headline; NUT SCREWS and BOLTS!!!*Somebody stole my mood ring. I'm not sure how I feel about that.*After a disappointing summer, dumpty had a great fall.*A bunch of cows broke into a pot field. The cops showed up soon after. The steaks were high.*The pepper wouldn't leave you alone, it was jalapeno business.*I was locked in a room until I could come up with t a pun. I banged on the door and cried "Oh please, o -pun the door!"*I felt like having fish for dinner so I went to the store and found my Perch in the aisle and bought some for the Halibut. My friends were angry when I ate all of it and told me I was shellfish!*f(x)=2x+1 walks into a bar. The barman says "I'm sorry, we don't cater for functions."*Did you hear about the Indian Chief that drank 100 cups of tea?..He died in his teepee.*The Shah of Whoran had a son known as the Shan. This young man suffered from seizures so bodyguards were hired to make sure he never hurt himself. When he suffered a seizure and fell on a floor fan, his father shouted, "Where were you when the fit hit the Shan?"*What does Tickle Me Elmo get before he leaves the factory?....Two Test Tickles.*Had to quit my printing job because i couldn't make any money.*Did you hear about the dyslexic Devil Worshiper. He sold his soul to Santa.*My physics teacher told us a joke today:Three guys are on a boat and they have four cigarettes, but no lighters or matches or anything to light it with. What do they do?They throw one cigarette over board and the whole boat becomes a cigarette lighter.*A pig lost his voice, now he's disgruntled.*I can build a boat, canoe?*Two TV antennas fell in love and got married.The ceremony wasn't so hot but the reception was terrific!*Did you hear about the leper who walked into the screen door? He strained himself.*Did you hear about the man who attempted a sex change operation on himself? As much as he tried, he just couldn't pull it off.*I know the guy who invented windows; He's a ledge.*Today police were called to a day care where a three-year-old was resisting a rest.*When the judge asked the stenographer for help she replied, "I'm short-handed".*The zoo got a pair of Koalas from Australia, who refused to eat. Informed that Koalas only eat Eucalyptus leaves the zoo had some shipped to the States. When the leaves arrived they were dried out and the Koalas couldn't eat them. The Mother Superior at the Sisters of Mercy convent heard of this and prepared a tea from the leaves which the Koalas drank and began to thrive. Having more to do than make tea, the M.S. turned the job over to a novice. Soon the Koalas began to lose weight. The Mother Superior asked how the novice made the tea. "First I boil the leaves in a large pot, then I let the tea steep, and then I pour it through a strainer." "Oh no" replied the Mother Superior, "The Koala Tea of Mercy is not strained."*Then there's a rare type of macaw that avoids water. Having one around is really good for your health because it's Polly Unsaturated.*They forgot, "I asked the Grandfather Clock what time it was and it chimed in."*Heard about the dyslexic alcoholic. He choked to death on his own Vimto.*I was going to make a skydiving joke, but it fell flat.*I will iron out all the details later said the man pressed for time.*A husband and wife were fighting about who has to make coffee in the morning. The wife says "You wake up before me you should do it." The husband says "It's part of the cooking so it's your responsibility." "No." the wife says. "It's in the bible that the man makes coffee." The husband says "Prove it." The wife goes and gets the bible and sure enough there it is.."HeBrews"*I was a contestant in a bubble gum blowing contest, I blew it !*I used to be indecisive. But now I'm not so sure!*I was wanting to camp on the moon until I heard about all the "lunartics".*A guy goes to the doctor because when he farts its sounds like "honda." The doctor says, I know what the problem is. You have an abscessed tooth. Let me remove it. The man is confused but he lets the doctor proceed. miraculously, it works! He can't believe it. Moral? Abcess makes the fart go honda.*What does a clock drink when it's thirsty? Minute made.*Camping is an in tents experience.*A neutron walks into a bar and asks "How much for a beer?"-Bartender says" For you-no charge!"*Why can't a bicycle stand on its own? Because It's two tired!*People get athlete's foot and an astronaut gets Mistletoe.*Null is a 4-letter void.*I'm reading a book about the absence of gravity; it's not a theory I hold up, but I can't put it down, either.*Why did the cannibal refuse to eat clowns? Because they taste funny.*To quote Robin Williams in Bicentennial Man (1999), "How do you make a hankey dance? Put a little boogie in it!"*When is a door not a door? When it is a jar.*When I was in France I ordered breakfast and they kept bringing me just one egg, because apparently...one egg is an oeuf!!*What's the difference between a filthy bus stop and a big breasted lobster? One is a crusty bus station, the other is a busty crustacean.*The pepper shaker sneaks into the cupboard late one night... The salt shaker says, "at chooo?"*I was afraid of speed humps but I'm finally getting over it.*I was gonna join a debating club but my friend talked me out of it.*I rescued an elderly man who was choking on a Viagra tablet. After the incident he told me that other than a stiff neck he was fine.*Dyslexics of the world, Untie!*Watermelon invites another fruit to "run away and get married". The fruit replied, "But I cantaloupe".*Where are you? This knead you. Have we caught you loafing? Or is there a bun in the oven?*What do you call the van that delivers medical supplies to urology clinics? A pee cup truck.*I am a musician who plays mostly in my home for my girlfriend. She showed me a song one day and I liked it immediately because it struck a resident chord within me.*Mommy tomato on a stroll with her yungin' but toddler too slow. Mommy turns around and stomps on the yungin' and shouts "ketchup".*I am still in stitches and used a box of tissues.*I went online to research recreational drugs ... Yes, I went on Tripadvisor!*Did you hear about the garbage man who got beat up at work? He was always talking trash.*When does water go back up in the sky? In dew time.*How do you fix a broken jackolantern? Use a pumpkin patch.*Why did the Skeleton go to the BBQ? To get some Spare Ribs.*

Every year around this time the Spelling Bee hopefuls are buzzing around the LearnThatWord hive... and for good reason:We are the most comprehensive Spelling Bee program around, with a spelling bee module that offers over 25,000 typical Spelling Bee words, sorted by frequency and difficulty.

If you like a list, you can add it to your account and we will focus on those words with priority.

Remember, if you add a lot of words to your account, make sure that "practice words, then priority words" is selected in your preference settings.Otherwise, you'll keep going through new Spelling Bee words but miss out on practicing those that need more review. This review of Spelling Bee words that you find difficult, however, is where the real learning happens that will prepare you for your big moment on stage!

This graphic was found on Pinterest without authorship notice. Not sure where the meme originated.

If you're an English language learner, then this is driving you crazy.Even native speakers are thrown off occasionally either spelling or pronouncing the "ough"-words.No easy solutions, like with many irregularities -- just got to learn it!

Three years ago we first launched our tutor partner program. Recently we collected experiences and best practices into a short webinar. Are you a tutor, helping students build their vocabulary? Contact us for your invitation, or sign up for your partner account!

The webinar provides an easy demo of partner insights and essential LearnThatWord features. The webinar is just 30 min long. Since it's a replay, you can fast forward or rewind as needed.

The first 20 min focus on partner tips, the last 10 min. on core LearnThatWord features. If any questions remain after this info session, just click live chat on our site for instant help.

All three quizzes now use mobile-ready html5 and are integrated with our Open English Dictionary, for an improved answer page and user experience. The format has been condensed and the tab key functionality expanded. This means, it is now easier to navigate the quiz, even on tablets or smart phones.

For us, this is also the first step for creating LearnThat apps.

The biggest changes happened in the vocabulary quiz. Here, we moved away from the multiple choice format, and to a format that is closer to the combo format.It requires a more active knowledge of the word, and more creative effort on behalf of the user--both crucial parts of language learning.It is more interesting and more challenging than the former pick-and-click multiple choice format, but still doesn't require the user to spell the word letter by letter.